If You're Not Playing White, You're Doing It Wrong

Another season, same old story. White continues to be the dominant color in Standard Pauper. In the past I've written at length about why I believe White often positioned so well in the metagame. Essentially, it comes down to versatility. White has great creatures, combat tricks, protection, and removal - what more could you ask for? It may not do all those things as well as other color, but the fact that it has access to all of them makes it almost always the right choice.

Of course, the fact that White is the secondary color of Enchantment removal in an "Enchantments-matter" set, doesn't hurt either.

Which is not to say that White should always be the dominant color in every deck. Merely that, all other things being equal, you probably want access to it. To illustrate my point, here's the winning decklist from yesterday's MPDC 25.02:

Bw Control

1st place by RRR726 in MPDC 25.02

Creatures 4 Auramancer 4 Basilica Screecher 4 Disciple of Phenax 4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel 2 Keening Apparition 1 Scholar of Athreos 19 cards Other Spells 4 Devour Flesh 4 Quag Sickness 4 Read the Bones 4 Stab Wound 2 Font of Return 18 cards

Lands 15 Swamp 4 Orzhov Guildgate 4 Plains 23 cards Sideboard 3 Pharika's Cure 3 Shrivel 2 Revoke Existence 2 Cremate 1 Keening Apparition 1 Crypt Incursion 3 Feast of Dreams 15 cards

Essentially, this deck is a typical Mono Black Control build that splashes White in order to recurse its own Enchantments while dealing with the opponent's. According to RRR726, it is based on this list from DrChrisBakerDC's blog, where he discusses it at some length. This added utility for Enchantments certainly strengthens the Mono Black build, and most of the time will probably prove superior to it.

So are there other popular decks in the format that could use a touch of vanilla to make them that much better? Let me know your thoughts below. See you next time.